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Houses help define our city, Homes help define our lives

Now that the holiday season is upon us, we usually take the opportunity to reflect on our life, our family, and our home. For many of us, our home – and often our kitchen – will be the basis of our social life for next few weeks.

Ottawa’s home builders and renovators sit around their homes and reflect on the past year with their families (both personal and professional, and for many their families fall into both camps) in the same manner.

As I’ve observed before, GOHBA members are proud to build new homes, and enhance existing homes, for the people of Ottawa and their families. They take pride in the new communities they create and the existing ones they augment because they are residents of Ottawa as well.

Their membership in GOHBA is a reflection of their commitment to provide affordability, quality, and choice to home buyers. Membership is also a communication to the public, to the City, and to colleagues. It signals that members have a role to play in improving Ottawa, contribute positively to the lifestyle of its residents, and take pride in being the voice of excellence in the home building community.

In order to improve affordability and enhance housing supply, GOHBA members volunteer their time to advocate for heathy and balanced municipal housing policies, and they share information and best practices from their own operations and from their Provincial and Federal counterparts.

GOHBA members provide good homes, good communities, and good jobs to Ottawa. And, like the rest of us at this time of year, they look forward to improving in all facets of these areas in the coming year.

On a personal note, the beginning of December marks six months for me as head of the Association. Building relationships with GOHBA members, Councillors, city staff, and other housing and real estate organizations in the city has been extremely rewarding. Collectively these are the people who work to improve the supply and quality of housing in the city. These are the stakeholders that work hard on the front lines to ensure that the people of Ottawa have the kind of city, the kind of community, and the kind of home they want.

I’ve spoken with well over a hundred GOHBA members so far, and all want to improve housing affordability. They recognize the benefit to reducing costs and increasing housing supply – so that more Ottawans have the opportunity to live in their desired home in their desired neighbourhood, and enjoy the holidays around their own kitchens.

We’ve worked hard over the last six months, and I’m looking forward to the next year as we continue to improve not only our value to members, but also the value of GOHBA to the wider housing community, to Ottawa, and to its citizens.